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Hi calm. I don't know about your first question. The principle is that one always favors life both with regards to procreation and abortion. Catholics who understand these things (many bishops) that come up in our modern scientific world are always against opposing that which is healthy. This comes from the belief that everything that God created is good. First chapters of Genesis. If its good and works, leave it alone. The Church doesn't agree with anything that would "frustrate" good health. That means that we can't oppose nature. Nature is good. We are against abortion or sterilization unless it is the only option that allows for the most life. There are natural ways to limit pregnancies for many good reasons. We can't oppose nature. But we can use nature. But here is the problem. Unlike many Christians and virtually all non-Christians, Catholics believe that an immortal soul is supernaturally created simultaneously with natural human conception. So how can we approve of the destruction of a person with an immortal soul? Only be dehumanization. And I approve of that intellectual process! I don't believe that pro-choice folks believe in murder, praise God. There is no getting around it as a Catholic. But we would be wrong to think that secular folks who don't believe in immortal souls are guilty of murder. That makes it easier to love them. None of us are promoting murder. So we aren't in favor of sterilization either. But we are "stuck", if you will, with our theology, while loving it, and seeing it as good. We cannot approve of the destruction of healthy organisms (sterilization). Nor can we approve of any abortions that would medically result in certain anticipated deaths, unless we are saving one (the mother or child), for the sake of the other. If two are going to die without medical intervention, and one can live with medical intervention, then intervention is the good and moral choice.

The guilt thing. Should we be impartial in every day life? Say you hear a parent of your kid’s friend was arrested, but released for child molestation and you hear it’s because of not sufficient evidence to prosecute. Would you be okay with your kid still playing at their friend’s house or make the judgment to never allow that parent to be around your child without your supervision?

This is interesting to me. How can you tell that some of the conclusions are based on too much emotion (and what conclusions have you seen being made)? Sincere questions and not trying to argue and it's not a set up. I'm asking because I haven't really seen many conclusions on the Cornell case (though I've missed a lot of posts so they could be out there) but I have seen opinions on what people believe to be most likely considering the evidence that is now public. Are we looking at the same posts and reading them completely differently or are we seeing different posts so coming up with different perspectives on what is happening in the thread? In your view what is the difference between 'mostly likely considering the evidence' and 'conclusions based on too much emotion'?

No, I'm not implying this. Are some of the conclusions based too much on emotions? Yes.

If there is a life after this one…and not just a repeat, ugh….what attributes would you want to have? You can also venture into what you want to see in the environment…. I am into watching acrobatics (not the dancish routines, though some are nice, the more athletic ones) lately. I remember how my body felt when a gymnastic move went well. What a sense of rightness even though I was hardly more than a beginner. I want the kind of body that can do things that look impossible. I especially want to be able to play in a giant ring*** and do massive flips in the air. To spin and spin without getting nauseated. Want to be able to endlessly swim. Favorite feeling is being immersed in water, hate having to get out. Would love to do it days on end….and be able to swim in the depths as well and not be bothered by cold, pressure, lack of air. Just learnt of a condition (which drove me to post my wanna haves) where one has 4 types of cones in the eyes, so one sees millions more colors. One person said they didn’t understand why people called pebbled beaches grey because they looked like a jeweler’s bench to them. I have a problem with Utah because the mountains are so often brown or grey. Sounds like that might solve my difficulty. Think of the world like that all the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrachromacy Absolute need is no fear. So many things I did as a child that went away as I grew due to irrational fears (I was a climber as a baby and kid, I remember how good it felt to climb a rock hill outcropping in a neighbour’s yard, trees, and on the roof of our and my grandma’s house (out the window, over the balcony, and on up….until I got caught). I just knew when I was older I was going to be climbing bigger and bigger ones (Dad took us to Yosemite a lot, I was going to climb the mountains there.) Some reason around ten I developed a fear of heights due to dizziness, most likely a vestibular thing given what came later. ***Been dreaming about this since I saw this over a decade ago https://youtu.be/GLlpi-0_lB0?si=1n_MPE03CIDPJBJ4

I'm not sure I understand?

I am not stridently opposed to abortion because my views align with the church, which allows it under certain circumstances. But I would say that in terms of someone's use of agency, I would rather they choose to sterilize themselves than choose elective abortions. Except in cases of rape, cohersion, or incest, women are 100% responsible for their choices in this matter and I don't believe the government or the voters can remove any of that responsibility from them. (I'm heart goes out to women who do end up pregnant in horrible conditions or circumstances. I believe in God's mercy and I'm glad I don't have to judge anyone because I would be horrible at it)

Just came across this. I know there are some here who approve of strong limitations on abortion, even very strong (I believe Catholic doctrine allows it as a side effect of treatment, but not the primary goal…for example if a woman is pregnant, but has to have a hysterectomy due to cancer…that’s allowed, correct?). Do you see more sterilizations as a good result of bans, an acceptable unintended consequence, or a backfire? Or something else? If you could influence government policy, what would you see as best result for that policy? If that’s too political (I believe most see this as a moral issue, whether pro choice or prolife), then focus on cultural changes you would see as helpful. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2823625 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39761461/ https://publichealth.gwu.edu/study-reveals-rising-interest-permanent-contraception-after-roe-v-wade-was-overturned https://publichealthwatch.org/newsletter/the-watch-more-women-sought-sterilization-after-fall-of-roe-v-wade/ https://www.medpagetoday.com/meetingcoverage/acog/121103 This is the most recent one, I believe. I believe the strongest increases were in states that banned abortion, but need to doublecheck that. (Can’t help reading AI summaries when I google. It’s like having to read anything written on bathroom stalls or every last billboard on a road. Drives me crazy sometimes.)

Fair enough. Are you implying that other posters here are basing their conclusions solely on emotion and not on reasoned assessment or are you just clarifying your own perspective? (Just wanting to make sure that I understand)

In court or in everyday life?

I don't divorce my emotion about women being mistreated and my reasoned assessment about the case at hand. I object, however, to anyone's emotional assessment being conclusory about guilt because I am also emotional about folks having the right to an impartial judgement.

Objectively speaking…. Being “black” is not the qualifying identifier of being a potential rapist here. Looking at a black man and looking at a white man will not allow you to ignore the white guy as inherently safe, etc. I believe this and what’s below has been mentioned before on the thread, so I wonder why you continue to act as if this is some relevant argument. Then there is the whole historical baggage of Black men getting too commonly blamed and punished for simply looking at white women, etc. where it was much more likely given it was whites who were typically the owners that it was white men raping black women. That adds a lot of context lacking in the general use of men as potential rapists. Is there there some too common historical injustice for men in general being systematically punished for false accusations of rape in similar ways I am not aware of? I am aware of the low rates of convictions and even low terms of punishment when someone was accused. Often in many cultures, punishment for men was to marry their victims. Which seems oddly inverted to me. In terms of violent crime, one is most likely to be assaulted by one’s own race. Therefore to focus one’s caution primarily on another race is irrational, which means there’s a good chance it is prejudicial.

Do the men who see men as playing the role of protecting women register what they have often been protecting women from over the centuries? Which is other men? Especially these days. It’s not too common in the here and now a man is called on to protect a woman from bears. We are begging them to help protect us from the bad guys though. In an intelligent way that we can easily recognize for it is. For example…. https://www.sace.ca/learn/bystander-intervention/

Welcome! Are there particular teachings of the LDS Church that you are drawn to? There are people here with many decades of experience in or with the LDS Church and we still find various topics to be quite interesting.

Casual conversation is not a court or legal laws….and people should be allowed to speak for themselves if they are willing to clarify their meaning….which I have, over and over. One hopes legal language is precise, but given how interpretation of laws varies over time, I think even here “plain and ordinary” changes based on context.

And if you ignore what else I wrote, taking my stuff out of context, I can see why you might interpret my stuff that way. But got to wonder why you make that choice to focus on just what you apparently prefer to argue against rather than my actual position. And I will repeat it here…. What my position boils down to it is because the good and bad guys often look the same superficially it takes time and engagement to figure out who are the good guys (the majority) and who are the ones capable of harassment, violence, and rape…some women don’t find out until years after being married to what they believed was a nice guy.*** So it’s best to prepare yourself to deal with the bad ones emotionally, physically, and financially and that also means being alert with most men because even if the majority of men are decent people, the cost of being assaulted is so high, preparation is important. Most of us are not going to be in a major car accident, a house fire, or natural disaster destroy our home, or have health issues such that we no longer can work during our nonsenior years, but we still are counseled—including at church—to prepare for those. It’s part of provident living. Simple risk assessment and preparation. Inherent in the above framing of good guys vs bad is that there are good men. Therefore in no way can I view every man as inherently capable of rape. It’s not logical or objective to insist on that meaning. ***I don’t expect women to wait for years to decide their male companion is a good man. That would be too emotionally taxing and restrictive. However, it is wise to have independent financial means if possible (and agree on this before merging other wealth, it could be a red flag if he refuses), enough to allow oneself freedom to leave if necessary. This is good not only in cases of domestic violence, but death or other cases where mixed assets or assets under a husband’s name might get frozen and a woman can’t get access to it. All this applies to men as well, since women can be the violent one in a relationship, die unexpectedly or have financial issues that impact their spouse. It’s just wise planning for the future.

Are you being snide? Or do you know of a real place with that name? (Admit to not knowing the reference to begin with). Russia was broke at the time, the Moscow zoo a few years later was still missing many displays due to animals starving or being stolen. Museums were not in great shape. The tourist trade was just really getting going when we first went from what I saw. Some Russians were delightful, but we got spat on and other fun stuff as well. Iow, I don’t think the government was into carting the little nobody tourists around at the time. I was quite amused when the roads in Moscow got their lines painted on them shortly before the American president was expected when we lived there. Iirc the mayor passed a law that cars had to be washed as well and some professors who weren’t getting paid took to washing cars along the river instead. Rough times for Russians. We rented an apartment where the owners needed to buy out the exhusband and so moved out to their dacha in the country for the winter…which I thought was nice (Moscow was not attractive in winter then) until I saw how some were more like sheds patched with cardboard and scrap wood when we got out to the country ourselves. I hope they had one in better shape. Didn’t mind the ridiculous rent (or so I thought) after that. There was an old, small village I have no clue what the name was where we stopped that might have been preserved for tourists, but could have been just a functioning old village that we lucked out that was kept in good shape. The port wasn’t very big and the gift shop was tiny. Doubt if it was a government show place. Didn’t have any officials showing us around. It was my favorite place in Russia. We were in Moscow when we lived there and only got out into the country once. What gorgeous forests. I don’t like crowded cities very often, parts of Moscow were beautiful, but it was nerve wracking to get around in. We came across the village on a Volga cruise my first trip there. My brother in law ran a cruise/business education/networking tour (they did work with the tourism bureau to set it up, but no chaperones on the trip that I was aware of, no indoctrination speeches either) and my business prof husband taught entrepreneurship on it one or two summer for a month or so several times. Took our son once and me his next trip. They were just starting out, so paid him in free tickets. Second time he got paid well for teaching at a university. Took the whole family with him Too bad my daughter was too young to remember much. Son was 12, so has some memories. We met LDS missionaries at the village (rather shocking at the time given it was ‘93 iirc) and saw them get attacked by geese. Lovely old homes and met a couple of charming young ladies as well. Wouldn’t have minded staying there longer and skipping the tour of war memorials later (I don’t like those anywhere, too mournful).

Yet oddly there are tribal grouping throughout the Book of Mormon. Nephites, Jacobites, Josephites, Zoramites, Lamanites, Lemuelites, and Ishaelites. No Samites though. Did his line die out?

did you make a stop at Potemkin village?

I get that. But Eschaton just quoted 2. I had asked if he could point me to what that is the consensus. How does he (or you) know that that is the consensus? I'm not talking about marriage in the hereafter. 100% agree that the consensus is that Christ is saying there is no marriage (or continuation of a marriage state) in the hereafter. I was asking about the "sexless" statement of angels. I could also add to that the whole celibacy discussion. I'm not sure if there is a consensus on both of those.

By how many scholars agree with those scholars. That is what a general consensus is.

Okay.

How do you know that that is the general consensus? I'm pretty sure @Pyreaux could quote some scholars, so why are you scholars better than his scholars?

David Aune’s argument hinges on a highly controversial reading of Luke 20:35, claiming that celibacy in mortality is a "prerequisite for resurrection." Mainstream scholars refute Aune. Dale C. Allison Jr. (Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, History, p. 182–184) "Jesus’ statement in Luke 20/Mark 12 is an explanation of the condition of the resurrected state, not an ascetic entrance requirement for salvation. To read the text as demanding celibacy in order to achieve resurrection forces an ascetic monk-theology back onto a Jewish prophet who was explicitly maligned by his contemporaries for eating, drinking, and celebrating with families." As for Kloppenborg's thesis, Kloppenborg himself acknowledges that the historical Jesus was famously not an ascetic wilderness hermit like the Qumran Essenes. Jesus dined in family homes (Peter's home, Mary and Martha's home), celebrated at wedding feasts (John 2), and was condemned by Pharisees for not practicing strict ascetic fasting (Matt 11:19). Even scholars who argue Jesus had an imminent apocalyptic worldview like E.P. Sanders and Bart Ehrman recognize that apocalyptic Jews did not stop marrying as a rule. The Essenes were apocalyptic too, yet archaeology and the Temple Scroll prove that even among sectarian apocalyptic groups, marriage and family structures were regulated and preserved. If Kloppenborg’s extreme view was correct, that Jesus wanted everyone to stop marrying immediately because time was up, why would Jesus issue the most radical, anti-divorce marital commandment in all of antiquity? If marriage was an obsolete institution about to be wiped out in weeks, forbidding divorce makes zero sense. Jesus’ forbidding of divorce proves He held a high, sacred, and enduring view of the marital covenant itself. 1 Enoch 15 supports my point. Why were the angels forbidden to take wives? Because while in heaven, heaven is not the place where marriages are instituted. That is still identical to Jesus’ statement and to LDS theology. Your argument selectively ignores a lot of mainstream non-LDS biblical scholarship on the historical Jesus. On "being like the angels" W.D. Davies & Dale C. Allison (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, Vol. 3) "Jesus does not say that human beings will be turned into angels, only that in a particular respect they will be like them... The comparison with angels implies immortality and freedom from physical decay, not the complete erasure of personal identity or divine human structure." Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J. (The Gospel According to Luke X–XXIV, Anchor Bible) "The phrase 'equal to the angels' (isangeloi) does not connote an ontological alteration of human gender or nature, but rather participation in angelic immortality, where death no longer reigns and the earthly necessity for procreative succession ceases." On Jesus's view of marriage E.P. Sanders (Jesus and Judaism & The Historical Figure of Jesus) "The historicity of Jesus prohibiting divorce is beyond reasonable doubt... In citing Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 ('God made them male and female... and the two shall become one flesh'), Jesus treats marriage not as a human concession or a civil transaction, but as a divine creation ordinance." "Jesus’s stance on divorce is remarkable precisely because it is so rigorous: what God has joined together, no human being has the right to separate. This is not the stance of an ascetic who views marriage as a worldly evil to be discarded." E.P. Sanders (The Historical Figure of Jesus, p. 198) "Jesus was not an ascetic in the sense of John the Baptist. His opponents called him a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners... He did not demand that all his followers renounce marriage or family life as an absolute precondition for the kingdom." On "eunuchs for the kingdom" John P. Meier (A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 1, Ch. 11) "The saying on eunuchs in Matthew 19:12 is a voluntary renunciation for the sake of an immediate, urgent ministry task... It is a charismatic exception, not a categorical imperative or a universal command for the entire Christian community." "When Jesus speaks of those who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven, he is employing shocking, exaggerated metaphor typical of his prophetic style—not establishing an ascetic hierarchy that brands marriage as inferior." On Paul teaching celibacy as the "higher way" Gordon D. Fee (The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT) "Paul’s preference for celibacy in 1 Corinthians 7 is explicitly context-bound: it is 'in view of the present distress' (dia tēn enestōsan anankēn). Paul is giving pastoral counsel for an emergency situation, not writing a systematic theology that repudiates the Genesis creation order." Richard Bauckham (Gospel Women: Studies of the Named Women in the Gospels) "Paul's affirmation in 1 Corinthians 11:11 ('Neither is the man without the woman, nor the woman without the man, in the Lord') anchors his long-term theology of redemption in mutual interdependence, balancing his situational advice regarding the impending crisis."

No, that was the general consensus on angels in Judaism at the time. If we ignore that and try to push LDS concepts onto the passage it makes even less sense. In LDS belief mortals are the angels so why would Jesus say they are like the angels and not that they just are the angels. The original Genesis story is almost certainly more about explaining legendary heroes and demigod legends. The concept of angels as we understand them wasn’t really around. These were divine beings, not rebelling angels. At the time all divine beings were considered to be gendered including Yahweh and El and all the rest of the pantheon. The Book of Enoch was a heretical text in most of the Jewish world. There is a reason it was at Qumran and not well loved by the general Pharisees and Sadducees though some of them knew about it. It was trashed almost completely by Judaism after the destruction of the Second Temple because the Rabbis (and Jews) in general were really done with the whole apocalyptic thing as the end result of expecting the messiah to be coming any second now and marching out to fight to usher in the end of days was just a lot of dead Jews. As one of my favorite Jewish scholars says (paraphrased): “If your military plan for victory is a deus ex machina, STAY HOME.” This is a really tortured reading of the text and attempts to read Jesus’s mind. Being against divorce doesn’t mean not advocating for celibacy which Jesus (according to this text) he definitely did. Nope, the “present distress” was the same to both Jesus and Paul. You shouldn’t marry because the messianic age is imminent. Both Jesus and Paul expected it to happen very soon. Jesus said it would be in that generation. Paul had to grapple with the question of what would happen to the people who had believed but then died before Jesus returned. That should have been Gospel 101 unless you were sure Jesus was about to show up so it wouldn’t matter. Jesus was telling people to cut off their hands and pluck out their eyes. Why is castration seen as extreme by comparison? At least one early Christian council had to decide that voluntary self-castration was bad and should disqualify you from joining the clergy. You don’t ban something unless people are doing it. Neither Jesus or Paul was talking about individuals who took temporary vows. They were given as general admonitions. The comparison doesn’t work. Paul almost certainly didn’t write the pastoral epistles. There are too many anachronisms. The “forbidding to marry” bit was probably an anti-Gnostic polemic. Also the pastoral epistles are much more misogynistic and authoritarian than the epistles virtually everyone thinks are authentically written by Paul. In Paul’s epistles women and slaves held positions in the church. In the pastoral epistles only men can lead and they have to be a reputable man in harmony with patriarchal Greco-Roman values to do so. Oh, and those widows are awful. Here are a bunch of excuses for why you shouldn’t help them. YUCK!